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by scarletjedi



Category: Rambo Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Getting Together, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 15:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13414368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletjedi/pseuds/scarletjedi
Summary: His war ended, and John went home.He didn’t stick around.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> written for infiniteeight

“So, back to Thailand?” Trautman asked, his face still shiny with sweat and streaked with desert dirt and blood. John kept his eyes on the horizon as he considered his answer. 

He’d first blown into Thailand on the whim of the wind, fresh off of another mission he’d do anything to forget, walking through the streets with no money and his meager pack, tired and aching heartsick. He’d climbed the steps to the temple like any other supplicant, seeking wisdom and peace and the bare labor that would quiet his mind. 

And — he’d found it. He’d spoken little of the language — still didn’t speak much, but they didn’t speak much either, so it worked out — but the monks welcomed him with food, gave him tools, and when the dreams grew heavy and his blood ran hot, they sailed him into town to fight. The money he brought in felt like dues paid, though the monks never asked for it, and it always went where it was needed most.

He had found a rhythm there, and a sense of belonging he’d never had, even before the war. 

John’s hand went to his chest, where his jade Buddha had hung, and felt only its absence. 

The wheel turns, and John should have realized when he’d left nothing of himself behind, that his time there was done. 

“No,” he said. There was only forwards.

Trautman, as ever, seemed unbothered by John’s reticence, simply nodding as if John had answered his every question. 

“Where _are_ you headed, then?” he asked. 

Now _that_ was a good question. 

* * *

_When John was twelve, he developed a crush on his best friend’s older brother. He didn’t know it was a crush, then, but John knew that Eric was kind and strong and brave, and had sandy hair and an easy smile. Eric joined up at eighteen, looking for a steady paycheck and a college education._

_Eric died six months into his first tour, in the early days of the war, leaving behind a muscle car and some vinyl and the memory of that smile, and John cried until he was sick, curled around his pillow and muffling his sobs into the bed._

_His friend Mark, angry at the machine that chewed up his brother only to spit him back out into the dirt, ran to Canada when his number came up, but John reported for duty, numb and with a heart full of frozen hate for what they had done._

_John shipped out with boys who wanted to kill gooks and boys who wanted the glory of battle and boys who simply wanted to survive so they could go back home. Everyone had their sweetheart, their family, their someone waiting._

_John had a best friend in Canada who hadn’t talked to him in years, a mother who cried instead of talking, and a father who swore to kill John himself if the Army didn’t straighten the faggot out of him._

_John went to Vietnam expecting to die like Eric, and in his quietest moments, perhaps even wished for it._

_John did not die in Vietnam, but he learned that he was very, very good at killing._

_In the end, it was nearly the same thing._

* * *

John still didn’t know where he was going next when they made it, at last, across the boarder. Things happened in a flurry then — John was whisked away to medical before he could so much as blink, where an army doctor swore at him and patched his wounds with a skilled efficiency that spoke of front-lines training, and injected him with something that cut his strings and sent him crashing. He slept like the dead, making up for the last few days of worry and travel and combat. 

When John next woke, truly woke to full awareness, Trautman was sitting next to John’s bed, looking like the back end of a great weekend — his face was clean, but yellowing bruises ringed his eye, the cut on his lip. A butterfly bandage graced the top of his forehead. Trautman’d been the one tortured, and somehow John was the one in worse shape. 

Trautman was also dressed in his Dress Greens. 

John watched him without speaking, and the history between them settled and stilled as Trautman stared back, witness to what came next. 

Something was different, had changed, fundamentally, and John was still too drugged up to tell what it was. 

“I’m being reassigned,” Trautman said, his voice heavy between them. 

John nodded. It wasn’t surprising — Trautman had caused a lot of trouble, which meant the Brass would want to stick him somewhere while things cooled down, but he had done them a favor, which meant that he would be moved quickly, quietly, and without ruining his career. It would also, knowing them, put Trautman near to another mess that they wanted, quietly, solved. 

“They’re, um,” he cleared his throat. “They’re sending me back stateside.” 

John looked up, then, and Trautman’s face was rueful, save for the anger that burned in his eyes. They weren’t just moving him, this time. They were retiring him, and he knew it. 

“Giving you a desk, sir?” John asked. It was the first time he’d spoken since he’d gone under the first time, and his voice was rough and harsh from disuse. 

“Hell they are,” Trautman snapped back, and John smirked. 

* * *

_His war ended, and John went home._

_He didn’t stick around._

* * *

Trautman left, and John slept though the evening, his body’s struggle to heal setting his internal clock out of whack. He wasn’t eighteen anymore, or even twenty-five. When he woke again, it was dark, and there was a nurse changing his fluid bag. She would be pretty, if she weren’t so severe, and John watched her with a detached sort of Zen. 

She noticed him watching. “Last one,” she said. “You’ll be off the bags by morning.” 

John nodded, and she left. He watched her go, wide awake, and listened to the sounds of medical night. 

There must have been some sort of painkiller in the bag, because it took him a minute to realize he still wasn’t alone. Trautman had returned at some point and was sitting in the only chair in the room. Uniform askew, his skin glistened a bit in the low light coming in from the door. He was drunk, or had been, and with his eyes closed, John assumed him to be sleeping. 

Like in so many things, however, Trautman surprised him. 

“They’re tryin’ t’ send me home,” he said, low. “I don’t…” he stopped, licking his lips. His eyes opened, dark slits in the shadows. “I don’t think I have one, anymore. Not there.” 

John felt like laughing, except for all the ways he really didn’t. “I know the feeling.” 

Samuel looked up at him, his eyes glinting in the dark. “Yeah, I thought you might. 

* * *

_John had several COs in the war. Some died. Some didn’t. Trautman was the first to look at John and do more than simply point him in the right direction. The first time Trautman sent him to kill, Trautman was there with him, every step of the way._

_Perhaps that was why it happened._

_It had been weeks since their last mission. It hadn’t been the first time, nor would it be the last – under Trautman’s supervision, the Army was finally using John Rambo tactically – but this time..._

_This time, John couldn’t settle, couldn’t come back down, and he was twitching, jumping at shadows._

_When Trautman had come for him, asking mildly for John to follow him, John had thought he was going to get dressed down, lectured – hell, even punished, forced to do hard labor to try and wear him out (it wouldn’t be the first time. It was the favored tactic of his last three Cos simply because it worked). So, John very much wasn’t expecting it when Trautman kissed him._

_John wasn’t stupid. There were so many reasons why this was a bad idea, the chain of command being the least of it. John was trained to be his weapon for fuck’s sake._

_When Trautman pulled back enough for John to whisper, “Sir,” Trautman shuddered, but then shook his head._

_“Sam,” John said, and then they didn’t say much at all._

_After, John felt more like himself, like he had been, before the war and his dad and everything. The feeling lasted all morning, until their new orders came in and John became Rambo again._

_They never talked about it, but whenever John couldn’t settle, there would be Trautman – Samuel – with him every step of the way._

* * *

“Come with me,” Samuel said. It wasn’t quite a question, not quite an order, but John felt himself respond to it, anyway. 

“Yes.” 

* * *

_John went west, away from the coast and the life he had known, deep into the countryside, where people on the ground were thin and he could perhaps, finally, disappear._

_He thought about going to Canada, looking up Mark and telling him he was right – that John should have never gone to war – that they turned him into something … that they pulled something out of him that John couldn’t push back inside._

_He came close, but couldn’t bring himself to cross the boarder. He went south once more, through Dakota and Idaho, Washington and Colorado, but never further south. Always, he stayed where the winters were cold, even if it meant he shivered when the sun set and he had to wear more than one pair of socks at a time. It was better than the heat. Better than the jungle._

_It was better, too, in the small towns, away from the highways where the cars would backfire and John would loose himself, only to wake miles away, feet aching and with no clear idea where he was. He took odd jobs to pay his way, cash under the table for hot coffee and a filling meal, perhaps a bed for the night. He could wash dishes and buss tables, hammer a nail and paint a fence. He was good with his hands and not afraid of hard labor. He kept himself clean and spoke softly, and tried to look smaller than he was, to hide the bloodstains under his nails and behind his eyes._

_Sometimes, he was lucky, and could stay for a few days, weeks, months in an apartment over someone’s diner, shop, garage. Other times he was forced to move on as quickly as he came, passing like a cloud before the sun._

_Then came Hope, Washington and Delmore’s widow, Sheriff Teasle and the National Guard._

_And Colonel Samuel Trautman._

* * *

They took commercial transport back to the States on the Army’s dime, seated in the back of coach as they went from Thailand to Germany to be transferred to Heathrow in London where they spent the wee hours of the morning sitting and waiting in the hard chairs of the terminal. Their flight was first out at 6:45 am. 

Seven hours later they were in Newark International, where a young man in green fatigues was waiting with a sign that read “Trautman,” and instructions to take them to Fort Dix. 

It was strange, being on American Soil once more. It hadn’t been all that long, not really, but long enough to notice the difference in the way people looked and spoke and acted. Perhaps John had simply spent too much time in the monastery, but the press of these bodies was different from the crowds that would press close around the fights, or that would fill the streets in the marketplace, and it unnerved him. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have come. 

* * *

_Prison was a lot like the army. The clock told you what to do, and the guards made sure you did it. The biggest and baddest ruled the roost, and if you wanted to survive your term, if you were one of the lucky stiffs to have a survivable term, you quickly learned how to keep your head down and out of trouble._

_In a weird way, it was good for John. For the first time since the army, he had a structure to his days. They clothed him, fed him, and gave him a routine that, in the course of time, calmed his nightmares. He felt settled, and while he wasn’t happy, it was something like absolution. Like healing._

_That, too, didn’t last._

_And again, there was Trautman._

_Samuel_

_Sam_

* * *

They wouldn’t let John wait in the car, which made sense, as it wasn’t John’s car to wait in, but they let him stroll behind them as Trautman was led from one office to another. He could sense the looks, the curiosity that followed him: Who was this man, wearing Army clothing but not in uniform, sticking so close to the Colonel like a stray dog following him home. 

John let them stare. They wouldn’t stare long. 

The sun was setting when Trautman—when Sam exited the last office. There was nothing different about his appearance, but he looked different all the same. Lighter, perhaps. Closer to the man John had known on mission, covered in blood, or in private covered in sweat. 

John stood, and they walked, shoulder to shoulder and without a word, back trough the base and out into the New Jersey night. 

“I’ve got a place,” Sam said, pulling out a crushed and mostly-empty pack of Parliments. “Upstate New York. It’s not much, but it’s paid for. Closest neighbors are miles away. Got a spare room, if you want.” 

Sam held out the pack to John, saying as John reached out. “Got a King-sized bed in the master, too.” He didn’t say _“If you want it,”_ but John heard it anyway.

John took the cigarette, held still as Sam lit a match for himself, and then held it out for John. 

He breathed deep, feeling the smoke curling in his chest before breathing out. 

“I want,” John said. 

They weren’t going to get there tonight. They could probably find a bus, a train, a _something_ to take them all the way upstate, but they had each of them been up for over twenty-four hours – longer for John, who had taken the first shift sleeping in Heathrow, and airport naps never seemed to count, anyway – and he could feel it turning his eyes to sand. It pulled at his temples, laying heavy in his chest. 

The guard at the gate called them a taxi while they smoked. It was a clear night, still early enough in the summer that the dark brought with it honest coolness, and it was a change from Thailand that made everything a little more real. 

The taxi took them to a nearby motel, once thriving on the path to the Jersey Shore but now nearly abandoned save for those who paid by the hour. John didn’t care, leaning against the doorframe as Sam spoke to the night manager and booked them a room. 

Tonight, they would sleep, pressed against each other, huddled away from the world and the sun and days to come. 

* * *

_John liked Thailand. It was familiar, but different enough to keep him here, grounded in the present._

_Maybe here, John could find a home._

* * *

John woke well after noon, when the afternoon sun began to slant long into evening though the heavy curtains on the window. It was the sun that had woken him, shining on his eyes with amber gold. Sam, wrapped around him, with his leg thrown over John’s, muttered in his sleep and held him tighter. 

This, they had never done before – shared their sleep for more than body heat – but it had seemed imperative to do so the night before, when they barely had the energy to undress. It seemed just as important now, in the light of day. 

“Tomorrow,” Sam muttered into the back of John’s neck. “We’ll travel tomorrow.” 

John nodded, and closed his eyes once more. 

* * *

_Sam’s “place” was an old farmhouse, built in the late 1800s but updated sometime in the late 60s/early 70s. It had been shut up against long absence, power and water turned off, windows boarded. Everything was covered with a fine layer of dust._

_John didn’t mind. He liked the work, and his time at the monastery had taught him the meditative calm of repetitive motion. He stayed behind to start the cleaning while Sam made his calls to get the house livable once more. There were things to repair: a creaky step or three, a sticky hinge, a back porch that settled unevenly. All things John could fix. All things that John looked forward to fixing._

_That night, they went to their bed, tired and sore and happy, celebrating their home with skin and friction and heat._

_In the morning, John and Sam would begin the long task of fixing their home._


End file.
